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"I think if he spent more time focusing on food and not so much being a television star, you might have seen more of him," Voltaggio told me the other day while he prepared breakfast at Food & Wine's Stella Artois Café at Sundance. "Because he's actually a talented cook once he focuses on how to cook. I think he just gets himself into unfortunate situations and that's what we see...

"He's a good cook when he's cooking," he added. "But when he's playing the part of Marcel, which is a completely different person. I think he really plays a part on TV."

Voltaggio has turned his win into gold. He's getting ready to open his first restaurant, Ink, in Los Angeles. A cookbook from him and his brother, fellow Top Chef contestant Bryan (he came in second to Michael), will be released later this year.

He wouldn't mind competing on the show again. "I did it for the personal challenge," he said. "I didn't really do it to compete against everybody else, I did it to compete against myself. And for that, the studying and preparation that went into that, it made me that much better.

"And obviously now I can speak in front of people a lot better," he said. "Before I was just like that weird artist in the back of the kitchen who never came out. So now I can kind of talk and articulate myself a little bit better. So it was good for that."

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Your information may be shared with other NBCUniversal businesses and used to better tailor our services and advertising to you. For more details about how we use your information, see our Privacy Policy. If you are located outside of the U.S., your information may be transferred to, processed and used in the U.S.